


Buttercups

by Unfathomablespace



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, M/M, Past hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:02:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfathomablespace/pseuds/Unfathomablespace
Summary: Bertie won the Wild Flower prize at school.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mistake ridden, I'm sure.

To say I had a lonely childhood would not be an exagger-whatsit. As a rule, we Woosters don't complain. We are not complainers. If faced with a soupy circumstance, we forge forward with a song in the heart and a smile on the map. I had ancestors in Agincourt brawling bravely against a grand evil, don't you know. But I didn't have a grand e. to b. against. Not when I was another boy shipped off to be shaped by the firm hand of private education and the cane it happened to be holding. 

 

I didn't have any friends for the first year. This may be difficult to believe of the universal favourite but it's true. I have a long face and one admits, a singular turn of phrase. A keen observer might describe me as willowy and lithe, but to the untrained or unkind eye I was just gawky and uncoordinated. It's a lucky thing to be blessed with an in-built nickname or else I'd be  _ Breaky _ or  _ Boney _ or something awful along those lines. 

 

The Bertram that arrived at the old school was a different one than the one you know. By the second year I had learned the ways of the Tuppys and the Barmys of the world. The ways of the vacant look and the blank eyes. I couldn't claim I was much happier but I certainly had a lot more chums. The real happiness came later. 

 

In the Summers, I was shuttled between between my aunt Agatha and my Dahlia. If you have been following these little memoirs then you can imagine which one I preferred. My Aunt was usually brewing tea from a mixture of broken glass and belladonna while my Aunt Dahlia was hurtling across fields with a cry that could raise the dead from their rest. However, Dahlia loves her Bertram. I'm sure Aunt Agatha does as well, deep down or in her baby toe or somewhere like that. But even as a little chap I decided not to test this familial affection.

 

Many sunny days were spent at Brinkley Court. Or rather just outside it. When Uncle Tom was polishing the silver he didn't trust servants with, and Aunt Dahlia was hunting that red vermin from the face of the earth (foxes, you understand, not communists) this boy Wooster would sneak off. Beside the courts there are fields and forests. And if you keep walking, there are flowers. Acres of them. I don't know, dear reader, if you've ever witnessed a hectare of buttercups but there's nothing quite like it. What's more it's jolly hard to be morose in amongst them. I rather felt like that Van Gogh chap eating all that yellow paint to cheer up. My heart was always in my chest until I came to them. Then I relaxed. I could feel the sun on my cheek, the wind in my hair. God was in his heaven so to speak. 

 

I liked the violets and the primroses so much I pressed them between my Latin book. The lilacs were too big for this treatment so they sat guiltily in a vase in bedroom where I prayed no servant would comment on them. 

 

The poppies were rare, and so, we're special. Their papery, eerily vibrant skin unnerved and excited me for reasons best know to the poet Johnnies. The daisies were common but still lovable. I did try to love them all equally but how could I? With that big bustling bustling field of buttercups to compare everything too. No contest really, what?

 

I had to sneak because little Woosters are not supposed to share any interests with little Bassetts. I knew this but rationed, no, rationalised- if that is the word I want, that being out walking in the open air was better than being inside starring moony eyed at silver cow creamers.

 

The freedom of that life made the confines of boarding school all the harsher. It seemed sinful to sit inside all day when there was so much out there to look at and sit by and feel on your skin. I was jittery in class and could never concentrate. I earned many stripes like this. None of the teachers were especially fond of me, bar one or two well meaning souls who probably assumed I simply wasn't the full shilling.

 

In my third year, they introduced the wildflower prize. To my delight. I had books and books of flowers at home. That holiday was my most prolific endeavour. I knew I could win this award. How could any of those tossers hold a candle to my enthusiasm alone? The most they knew was that one was meant to woo women with them. I didn't care for all that rot even then. I arrived back with an entire blank sheet book pasted with blooms and leaves. It was awfully professional looking. Some boys had shown up with a fist full of posies and looked quite the fools.

 

I was chuffed. I floated on air during that term. With my book to look at, it was easier. It was a tangible reminder of what I would return to. Little did I know that Fate was in the Kitchen with the Spanner waiting to off my new found contentedness.

 

It was the night before we returned into the loving of arms of our adoring families and I was in excellent spirits. As I always am in these situations. And I slept with my prize beside my pillow, having fallen asleep looking at it. I imagine most of you can see where this is leading but I couldn't have known. It was, as I'm sure you've guessed, gone, in the morning. I'm not ashamed to say I wept like the dickens. There was no controlling it. I had loved that book. It was something I had  _ made _ you understand. 

 

The worst part is I don't know who did it. I have no clue who would have don't such an awful thing. It could have been any teacher or student in the place since all the doors and dorms were unlocked. I think that's why I never had a best friend. Just piles and heaps of good pals. I couldn't trust a one of them after that. 

 

As I was leaving to give my luggage to the Porter who brought all the boy’s things to the train station, I saw a maid cleaning out the fireplace. My blood ran cold because I knew, when I saw her, what had happened. She was cursing. 

 

“What are those boys burning that could make this much ash?” she muttered like a beazel who has had enough of this nonsense. 

 

Books, I felt like saying. They burned my book. And there it was, in ashes. A huge pile of ashes being swept up and carried away and dumped like eviction notices in a corrupt bank office. 

 

When I got on the train, I feigned illness and claimed a booth to myself. I curled up and cried all the way home. Like the little piggies in the story. 

_______

 

“I say, Jeeves, how is it that no one wears wildflowers in their buttonholes? I thought they were rather fetching as a child.”

 

Jeeves paused for a moment, as if considering. I suppose it wasn't high on the man's agenda, what with having the real mysteries of the universe to solve. Still it looked like he was giving it all the same attention. While he mulled this over I continued. 

 

“I loved them as a boy, old thing. I always wondered why they were called buttercups though. Angela always had some notion of rubbing them on her chin to determine something or other but I never bought into that.”

 

Jeeves perked up. He clearly knew the answer to this one. I waited for the knowledge to answer my idle whim to rain down upon me. 

 

“There is one source, sir, called the Legend of Ranunculus. According to this myth, a Libyan youth named Ranunculus was known for his beautiful singing voice and stunning attire of yellow and green silk. His voice had the power to entrance any who heard him sing.”

 

“Sounds like my kind of chap” I said, rather carelessly when one thinks about it.  But one doesn't think about it with Jeeves. The man soothes me into the confession of all every time we speak.  It is very odd, yet comforting. 

 

“Indeed, sir”, said Jeeves with a funny sort of smile, “upon his passing, Orpheus transformed him into the buttercup”

 

“He must have thought he was quite the thing to do that.” I mused. I couldn't imagine anyone loving me enough to stay with me for very long, nevermind honour my death something as pretty as all that. It was a rum thought and the young master’s heart gave a pang, I don't mind telling you. 

 

“My Aunt Agatha said they were choking weeds and meant ingratitude. She thought that was why I liked them.”

 

Jeeves hummed and looked down for a moment. Further revealing of Aunt Agatha’s callous attitude towards the younger young master seemed to upset him. This always thrilled me, just a little, to think that there was genuine concern for me tucked somewhere in that magnificent brain of his. 

 

“The meaning is supposed to vary from place to place, sir”

 

“Oh yes, and what did it mean -” I realised I didn't know where he grew up and stopped short. I knew it probably wasn't proper but I wanted to know these things about the cove. I wanted to know everything about him. 

 

“Your charm dazzles me, sir”

 

I thanked all the gods that I hadn't been drinking at that moment or I would have showered Jeeves in undignified spittle.Which I doubt he would have appreciated. There was a second where I believed my nameless affections to be reciprocated before I rapidly came to my senses. 

 

I stared up at him, with an expression similar to that of startled cow. I was just about to give him an old “I say!”, when Jeeves appeared to push something down and continue. 

 

“Lightness and joy or, or cheerfulness. There are many readings, sir” 

 

I'd never seen Jeeves to trip over his words like that. It was a rush of... something. A delicate colour showed on the tips of ears and his cheeks. He seemed embarrassed or at the very least acutely aware of his fumble. 

 

I revelled in it. I loved the cracked in my valet’s armour. Whatever it was that had caused this breach. The moment was passing and felt I needed to say something. I needed to address the tension in the air. 

 

“Buttercups.” I said, instead. 

  
“Yes, sir” Jeeves said, seeming to gather himself and biffed off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am mm, I rather pulled Chekov's gun on myself in the last chapter so there will probably be more to this.

Over the years, I have been party to many attempts at seduction or proposals of marriage. It has always been solely as a sapient third party, pulling the strings for the young master’s pals. I study the psychology of the individual or Mr. Wooster puts it. But any clever man can be reduced to a dunce when faced with a problem of his own. Especially when used to solving other’s.

  


I have stated before, in other private memoirs that have since surfaced,  watered down considerably, how upon seeing Mr. Wooster that first time, that I very nearly melted. After the conversation about the Buttercups I fear my affections have increased by no small measure. Seeing him so vulnerable, emotionally bare in my presence is moving to say the least. His childhood tales chill me, thought I do my best to remain _ sangfroid  _ for his sake. Lady Worplesdon appears to have mellowed with age, now merely shouting or gnashing her teeth at her nephew in hour burst as opposed to days long stints.

  


The day in question my heart had been seized by his most recent story. One would think, to look at him now, that he is a natural gad-a-about. I had always imagined that his easy cheerfulness was intrinsic and never have I been so disturbed at a mistaken hypothesis.  I now saw my employer's every interaction in a new light. Perhaps Cyril Fotheringay Phipps had once wronged him or Gussy Fink Nottle, now ever eager to take his help had once snubbed him. I could not find it within myself to warm to any of the colourful characters that traipse into the living room. 

  


It was a real effort to maintain what Mr. Wooster had dubbed my “ _ stuffed frog”  _ expression in their company. It was the nature of Mr. Wooster’s luck, that he often ended up leaning or jumping toward me in shock. While the frequency of this necessity angered me, I still savoured that trusting contact. He called for me instinctively despite being sure of my presence. 

  


It was on a whim, one day, walking home that I encountered Molly the Flower Merchant. Aside her usual finer wares were posies of cheap wild flowers. I saw the bunch of Buttercups and without real thought to the implications of my actions, bought them. They were lighter than what I usually bought and seemed strange and undignified in my gloved hands. 

  


I set them in a white china vase in living room. I didn't know if it was because the growing apprehension I felt about my purchase or simply their colour, but they instantly became the focal point of the room. It was a half hour later when my employer arrived home, whistling the Drone’s latest instant classic. He strode in with his usual buoyant gate and made for the bedroom. I watched him as he, as if scripted, disappeared into the room and after one well timed comedic beat poked his head around the doorframe. 

  


He goggled at the flowers in childish, confused manner. I loathe to admit it but I adore and have begun courting this reaction in Mr. Wooster. My employer raised his eyebrows, looking from me to the vase, pulling his pouted lips into a perfect bow. He shoved his hands into his pockets, walked over to where I stood and looked again at the case between us. His nose was scrunched in a way I determined most endearing. 

  


“I say, Jeeves” he said, smiling. 

  


I allowed myself a twitch of the lip, enjoying the gaze with which I was fixed “Yes,sir”

  


“Buttercups, Jeeves”

  


“Undoubtedly, sir”

  


He walked off again inclining his head as if in thought. My heart pounded. I could not fathom the repercussions that could arise should he figure out the sentiment in which these were gifted. I should never allow myself these infractions. If not for my own safety then for Mr. Wooster’s, for it would the imminent Lord Yaxley’s name splattered across headlines and not mine should a scandal come out.

  


I went back to dusting the flat. Before long, Mr. Wooster’s head popped out from the other room before the rest of him. 

  


“Jeeves,” he said, in a contemplative tone “What did Buttercups mean where you're from again?”

  


He didn't look me in the eye while saying this. His fingertips were grazing his forehead with the palm facing out. There were pale pinks in his cheeks and his body language was unsure. I thought back on our previous botanical communications and felt my blood freeze.

  


“I believe we discussed multiple meanings of the plant, sir”

  


Mr. Wooster gave a hollow imitation of a laugh that I often heard him empty in the company of aunts. This drove an arrow through my heart. I couldn't bare to lose the esteem he had placed in me. It had been vulgar and ugly folly to imagine he would return my affections.

  


“Ha! Well yes Jeeves but there was one you mentioned that I, well, I can't seem to call to mind and you know these things, old fruit.” Mr. Wooster appeared giddy and had accompanied this spiel with animated yet oddly strained hand gestures. He was the picture of a man attempting to as the American crime novelists say “act natural”.

  


I weighed the consequences of the various answers my brain presented. I decided, quickly to lie.

  


“Lightness and joy or cheerfulness”

  


The reply was instant as if he had expected this move on my part.

  


“Really Jeeves? I could have sworn it was something to do with my charm dazzling you or that sort of thing, what”

  


I grew more and more afraid that I had been discovered. I was rooted to the spot and I think Mr. Wooster may have detected this because he walked toward me. His thread was soft, not making any sound on the occasionally creaky hardwood floor. We were suddenly close. 

  


He was looked at me now. I watched his eyes follow my Adam’s apple betraying my gulp of air. He licked his lips and I felt weak at the knees. It was novel. I had not felt this exact mixture of fierce attraction, fear and concern ever before. 

  


“Well you see, I couldn't rule out that, that you found my charm dazzling but I couldn't say that, what? I couldn't just ask my valet, I say Jeeves do you think I'm dazzling? Do you think of me when I'm not there? It wouldn't be proper. It wouldn't be  _ preux _ ”

  


He took another cautious step and his expression seemed too serious for his lovely, darling face. As I mentioned earlier I was too in my own head to comprehend the situation.  Was this a declaration on Mr. Wooster’s part or an accusation? Whatever it was, I wanted to hold him and smooth the frown from his brow with my thumb. He was still looking at me. Mr. Wooster didn't take his eyes off me and the effect was heady. 

  


“So, Jeeves I had resolved to stay quiet. I had continued my pursuit to be the universal favourite when I see those,” he motioned to the Buttercups I had all but forgotten, “and I couldn't help but notice how they contrasted with you eyes which are very very blue, Jeeves, very blue indeed. So I suppose, what I mean to say is, Jeeves, what do Buttercups mean wherever it is that made someone like you?”

  


I can honestly say that I did not realise he had finished his speech for a moment. I was staring back him, with my mouth opened partially. I didn't have the words. My sense of poetry barred me from the of used “charm” or “dazzled” for at least a week after their recent hard work. 

  


I took a breathe and bridged the three inches between us. I kissed him. It was only a brush of the lips, only the expression of desperate hope. Bertram’s eyes fluttered shut and he stood stock still. Then his tongue poked out and licked my impression away. He looked sinful. 

  


I kissed him again, properly this time. He opened his mouth to me and to this day I am surprised that my heart didn't break out of my chest and throw itself on to the floor before him. He held my head in his hands. I felt precious. I face was framed by him. 

  


I slid my hands down his sides, gently. This was a delicate moment that seemed to float, fragile in the air around us. There was a drunken sensation to the proceedings, like an old body tingling. 

  


“Jeeves”

  


“Yes, sir?”

  


Bertram grabbed my lapels and buried his head in my collar. I held him as I had wished to do for so long.

  


“Oh Jeeves”

  


I kissed his golden hair. My darling boy. I could feel his breath on my neck, raising the short fair hairs there. I wrapped my arms around Bertram and held him like I had dreamt. He was as slim and smooth as he looked. I worried my cooking had not been good enough when he put his arms around  _ me  _  and craned his neck to kiss my jaw. 

  


“If I may suggest it sir, perhaps we should retire to the bedroom.”

  


“Topping idea, Jeeves, but listen old thing, call me Bertie.”

  


I picked him up like other men would their bride and blushing, carried him across his own threshold.  

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfathomablespace on tumblr.  
> Gods I'm lonely...  
> Comment!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is late, probably full of mistakes and written on a plane will sitting beside a yelling child and a nervous and admittedly lovely man who had a twitch in his leg. This is unrelated but I had to tell someone.

Dearest Diary,

 

I cannot take the local rooftops into my confidence so I must shout to you instead. I feel the same buzz and fuzz around my temples that I have laboured under for the last few months. I asked Jeeves if it was just the grey hair growing and he'd laughed, (laughed! Oh how the Wooster heart had swooned). He'd booked an appointment with the nearest quack, dressed me up like his personal arrow collar boy as was his fashion, and marched me down the road in an enjoyable if matronly fashion. The doctor was a lady we knew quite well, the daughter of one of our love-matches. Her amused smile was as absent as a chronically truant schoolboy on this occasion however. 

 

Diary, I'll break the news roughly and you shall bear it well because that is why I opted for a hardcover copybook - strong spines. Now, I know over the last while I have undoubted endeared myself to you what with being the universal favourite and all that rot, but know that Jeeves has the problem well in hand. I have something called early onset alzheimer's and various other bits and bobs that will likely shorten my lifespan considerably. Pieces of my memories will be breaking off and drifting away. Now before you say - “But Bertie! You were never in possession of a particularly powerful mind in the first place!” I first must chide your lack of tact and point out that the love of my life, my dearest and my own - does. And he is shaken to the core by this news. I can tell. So I make this confession to absolve myself of his pain because God knows nothings doing for any other method. He will not hear of experiencing a moment's negativity. 

 

I am not as dim as I look or sound and know that I am not long for dancing along this mortal coil. I have accepted it, for it has been a good life. But I worry that Jeeves feels he didn't look after me properly or some such rubbish. To this I say - flapdoodle, and I mean it to sting.

 

Jeeves and I were probably the only happy couple in our acquaintance. We never had reason to part, merely taking Jeeves’ annual holiday in our bedroom.

I tell you diary dearest, that these last thirty something year have the happiest of my life. After a few years I stopped worrying Jeeves would leave and we settled into the most blissful state I have ever witnessed between two people. 

 

And what's more, old thing, we found each other young enough to enjoy it but old enough to appreciate it. I must say that this Wooster has experienced pain and humiliation, but I would live through all of it again to get to Jeeves. He really saved me that day, and I only hope that he knows it. I hope that I convey this in a way he can understand. 

 

I mean in a way that is legible don't you know, my ramblings have become harder to grasp as the years have rolled by. Jeeves does an admirable job as is way, the competent cove but my handwriting skills - never prize winning to tell the truth, have circled back to my days of extreme youth and I occasionally feel like giving up and ordering Harrod’s finest collection of crayons and making a right go of the thing.

 

I've lost my train of thought. However I can read back over its tracks these days. Ah yes, because it's important. He needs to be aware of how much he has changed my life, changed me even. Always for the better, bless him. And I'm ever so grateful, not in the way one is to Aunts who have done something, decided it was to your benefit and demanded thanks-yous and farsical favours.  No, with Reginald, my darling lamb, I feel it in my fingertips and bones and chest - but then that could just be love. Or maybe it's a touch of both, what? I must go now, to bed, to Jeeves. Tally- ho, what, diary?

 

Goodnight. 

 

-

 

Bertram passed away in his sleep, in the early hours of the morning. He was clinging to me, in our blissfully shared bed. I comfort myself thinking that his final sight was of me. That I held him in his moments even we both were unaware of the fact at the time. Despite my rage at the universe and any power that may be, that would take him from me, I concede that it was a good death. He was happy, and considerate enough, even at death's door to reassure me of his bright and irreplaceable love. I shall never see his like again and the world is infinitely poorer for it. 

 

His funeral was the most well attended London has ever seen. Gentlemen and women from all over the country flocked to his grave. I wore all black and was looked upon with a mixture of sympathy and mild disgust by many, as it was clear I was grieving like any lover would a lifelong spouse. I admit I was too torn apart to register much at the ceremony. There have been very few moments in my life that have overwhelmed me but that day did. I buried my heart that day. I was in a trance and had been for days, living in the confines of well ploughed rituals to keep me alive. I remember raking my brain for any piece of writing or thought or prayer or experience that could justify or even explain the untimely death of Bertie Wooster. I could not.

 

His grave was in a fashionable part of the yard, flanked by admirals and colonels. He belonged and he didn't at the same time. I visited every day, in secret sometimes, my grief only acting as a buffer to hard labour and social outcry for so long. After two weeks, from the brown soil sprouted and single buttercup and I broke my heart anew. I wept. I wailed, falling to the ground and staying there shaking grasping the granite border of my love’s grave. It felt like Bertram was reaching out to me and I could barely stand it. Kind to the end and then beyond it. 

  
In a fit of what my longer self would have called madness I purchased a cartoon of wildflower seeds and tended the earth until they grew. Bertie’s grave became a beacon of light in that dark place. Shining, brilliant yellow as vital and vibrant as he was all his life, no matter what. I loved it as I loved him. And love him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfathomablespace on tumblr. Please clap.


End file.
